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HIST410 – Final Project Prompt
Assignment overview:
In a public, digital form, equivalent to the work and words of a 10 page paper, present a formal analysis of one or two sources related to Atlantic history. This project should situate the sources in the time and place of their production and make a concrete argument. It should present an answer to a focused historical question. It should have some kind of interactive component.
Assume that your reader is informed, but not expert (i.e. write for a more general audience than people in this class)
Writing process:
First, pick one or two primary sources that help elucidate your topic.
Before you begin writing, carefully read (and re-read) your source, extracting as much information as you can:
- Think about the source’s production: Who produced it, when, and why?
- Pay attention also to what the source is not telling you: its unstated assumptions, the partiality of its perspective.
- Think about the source’s potential audience. Who was the intended recipient? Who else might have seen this source and reacted to it?
- Think about the significance of the source more broadly: What can it tell us about its author/creator? What can it tell us about the context in which it was produced?
- Think about how you present this source, and the ways in which it will be different from a classic paper. What affordances does digital public work allow that traditional papers do not? How do you want to support those affordances?
Then:
- Be sure to include support from the sources (and correct citations) for your arguments and for any secondary sources you find it appropriate to include.
- Contextualize your source – give the reader the information they need to understand the source (but not extraneous or unrelated information)
- Develop a thesis about the past that the source can support. This thesis should be specific and sustainable, rather than large and ambitious.
- Write an introduction that gives a preview of your argument, as well as a discussion of what you want viewers to get from your project.
- Put all of this together into a public, interactive site that showcases your primary sources and uses them to explain a broader facet of Atlantic history.
Additional notes:
- You must reference AT LEAST one scholarly book and AT LEAST three scholarly articles and ONE addition book, article or scholarly digital project. These must offer historiographical as well as historical context.
- You must include a bibliography page with correct citations for your primary and secondary sources